The present invention relates to a process for realising a device for collecting and transferring samples for molecular biology.
The invention also relates to a device for collecting and transferring samples for molecular biology realised using the process and a method for collecting and transferring samples for molecular biology by using the device.
The invention is, for example, applicable for collecting and transferring samples for molecular biology, such as DNA, RNA and cells containing DNA and RNA.
The invention can further be usefully applied for collecting and transferring other types of analytes or biological samples or samples of biological origin.
The prior art includes various types of devices for collecting and transferring analytes such as organic or biological substances, for example to be subsequently subjected to laboratory examinations of analytic or diagnostic type. The prior art especially describes the use of conventional collecting devices comprising an elongate support body and an elongate fibre, generally cotton, wound about an end of the body, up to defining a collecting portion destined to absorb internally thereof the samples to be collected.
These devices exhibit various drawbacks, among which is the fact that the biological samples tend to be retained inside the collecting portion, and thus are difficult to extract from the collecting portion when necessary. Thus the quantity of sample that can be recuperated from the initially-available sample is often very limited, which results in numerous drawbacks. As in some cases the actual quantity of substance collected can be very limited in the first place, it is of fundamental importance to be able to collect the greatest possible percentage of initially-collected substance. To obviate this drawback, devices have been provided, conventionally known as flocked swabs and comprising an elongate support body and a plurality of flocked fibres at an end of the support body such as to define a collecting portion for the analytes or biological samples. The fibres can be flocked on the body by flocking in a magnetic field, and can adhere to the support body with an appropriate glue or even without the use of adhesives. The fibres can be arranged orderly and substantially perpendicular to the support body, such as to define an optimal configuration for collection, transport and selective release of the collected samples. This type of device is known, for example, from a patent belonging to the present applicant, EP1608268 B1. Thanks to the ordered arrangement of the fibres parallel to the support body, these devices are able to absorb quantities of analytes or samples that are at least equivalent to conventional devices as described above, but exhibit the big advantage of enabling release, at the appropriate moment, of much larger quantities of the analytes or samples from the collected portion, with up to 80% or even more of the original sample easily salvaged. The applicant has found that although the above-described flocked devices can be advantageously used also for collecting and transferring samples for molecular biology such as DNA, RNA and cells containing these samples, the quantities of DNA and RNA release by the device and effectively usable for performing molecular biology operations, such as polymerisation or amplification, are sometimes unsatisfactory or insufficient, with all the consequent difficulties of the case in performing processes to be performed on the samples.